4
CapitalPress.com
November 20, 2015
Wolves
Idaho wolf depredations continue downward trend
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Idaho wolf
depredations
on livestock
Capital Press
(Fiscal years ending Sept. 30)
440
Sheep
Cattle
407
Down 47%
from 2012
Down 67%
from 2012
146
135
100
2012
67
62
53
2013
2014
2015
Source: USDA Wildlife Services
Capital Press graphic
BOISE — Reported wolf
attacks on Idaho livestock
continued declining in 2015,
according to new numbers
from USDA Wildlife Services.
The Cascade area was the
lone exception to the trend, and
Todd Grimm, Idaho’s Wildlife
Services director, who plans to
use a helicopter this winter to
radio collar wolves in the area.
During fi scal year 2015,
which ended on Sept. 30, the
agency conducted 91 wolf
depredation investigations of
varying scope, down from 107
during the prior fi scal year and
129 in FY 2013. The number
of investigations peaked in
2009 at 219.
“They’ve been trending
down for a while, and this
trend continued this year,”
Grimm said.
Confi rmed and probable
wolf-caused livestock deaths
have also been dropping.
Grimm said there were 53 cat-
tle deaths in FY 2015, down
from 62 in FY 2014, 67 in
FY 2013 and 100 in FY 2012.
There were 135 sheep deaths
attributed to wolves in FY
2015, down from 146 in FY
2014, 440 in FY 2013 and 407
in FY 2012.
Ranching industry leaders
attribute the declines to more
liberal Idaho hunting and trap-
ping regulations and height-
ened attention on management
since federal protection for
wolves ended.
“We’ve got a hunting sea-
son going,” said Stan Boyd,
executive director of Idaho
Wool Growers. “Finally, the
state is managing its wolf pop-
ulation.”
Grimm’s department re-
moved 70 wolves during FY
2015, up 17 wolves from the
prior year.
Though fi ve wolves were
destroyed near Cascade, the
area’s wolves remained bold
this summer in the face of
human activity, killing nine
cattle, Grimm said. Grimm
plans to commence with radio
collaring efforts there as soon
as there’s blue sky and snow to
track foot prints.
“We spent a lot of resourc-
es fl ying, looking for un-col-
lared animals (last summer),”
Grimm said. “That wasn’t very
productive.”
Wolves killed seven cat-
tle owned by Cascade-area
rancher Phil Davis, and didn’t
bother to feed on the carcases.
Davis fears wolf attacks often
go undetected by ranchers, as
livestock die slowly from hid-
den wounds.
“Most often, animals are
intact, and they look like they
could have died from 100 dif-
ferent things,” Davis said.
Emmett sheep rancher John
Peterson hadn’t lost an animal
since 2013, when Wildlife Ser-
vices removed a troublesome
wolf pack. During an Aug. 6
wolf attack, however, Peter-
son lost 54 head, the most of
any rancher during FY 2015.
Nonetheless he’s encouraged
there are no longer wolf dens
near his grazing territory, and
big game numbers appear on
the rise.
John Beals, project man-
ager with the Governor’s Of-
fi ce of Species Conservation,
said ranchers should apply for
compensation for FY 2015
wolf losses by Jan. 31, 2016.
He said there’s ample fund-
ing for the last fi scal year, and
his offi ce recently received
$100,000 in federal funding to
cover FY 2016.
The Idaho Department of
Fish and Game, which mon-
itors wolves for wildlife, also
has ample wolf-management
funding — roughly $400,000
— due to a surge in tax reve-
nue from gun and ammunition
sales, said staff biologist Jim
Hayden. For the year, Hayden
said the state’s wolf hunters
and trappers are on pace to
equal the 250 wolves they
harvested last year.
No charge fi led in E. Wash. wolf shooting
Conviction unlikely,
prosecutor says
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
An Eastern Washington
man who shot and killed a
wolf Oct. 11 won’t be charged,
the Columbia County Pros-
ecutor’s Offi ce announced
Tuesday.
The man fi red from his
front porch and later told
Washington Department of
Fish and Wildlife offi cers that
he feared for the safety of his
wife and dogs. Prosecutors
were “highly unlikely” to gain
a conviction and an acquittal
may have encouraged “open
season” on the state-protect-
ed species, according to a
memorandum from Deputy
Prosecuting Attorney C. Dale
Slack.
The shooter’s “demean-
or and behavior” suggested
his only motive was to pro-
tect his pets and family, ac-
cording to Slack. “Whether
the fear was reasonable is
debatable, but it appears the
fear was real to him and will
come across as such before a
jury,” Slack wrote.
Wolves in the most east-
ern one-third of Washington
have been removed from the
Courtesy of Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife
OR-14, shown when he was fi tted with a collar in 2012 by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife,
was shot and killed Oct. 11 by a Columbia County, Wash., resident. The Columbia County Prosecu-
tor’s Offi ce announced Tuesday that the man won’t be charged.
federal endangered species
list, but they remain on the
state’s endangered species
list. Taking a state-protect-
ed species is a gross misde-
meanor punishable by up to
one year in jail and a $5,000
fi ne.
Columbia County Pros-
ecutor Rea Culwell said the
shooting presented a much
different set of facts than one
in October 2014 in Whitman
County, also in southeast
Washington.
In that case, a man pursued
a wolf in his pickup and shot
the animal in a wheat fi eld.
The man was charged, but
the case was dropped after he
agreed to pay $100 in court
costs, an outcome criticized
by some wolf advocates. Al-
though the wolf was not an
immediate threat to humans
or animals, Whitman County
Prosecutor Denis Tracy said
the wolf’s presence raised
legitimate public-safety con-
cerns.
In Columbia County, a
Blue Mountains resident re-
ported that he shot at a wolf
10 times with a .22-caliber ri-
fl e, with the fatal shot hitting
the skull and dropping the an-
imal 43 yards from the cabin,
according to WDFW.
The male wolf had been
collared more than three
years ago by the Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife
and was known as OR-14.
When it was killed, it was
underweight, separated from
its pack and suffering from
an infection. Old wounds in-
cluded birdshot pellets to the
wolf’s head.
The wolf’s hunger, age
and poor health could have
made the animal unpredict-
able and less afraid of hu-
mans, Slack stated.
“This is not a compelling
and powerful ‘test case’ that
will send a message with a
win, but a loss will defi nitely
send a message that Colum-
bia County juries won’t con-
vict a wolf shooter,” accord-
ing to Slack.
Conservation Northwest
Executive Director Mitch
Friedman said he agreed with
the prosecutor’s reasoning,
though he said he remains
concerned about a pattern of
wolf shootings.
Besides the wolves shot
in Whitman and Columbia
counties, a wolf was shot and
killed in October 2014 in Kit-
titas County in Central Wash-
ington.
Conservation groups have
put up a $20,000 reward for
information leading to a con-
viction. No arrests have been
made.
A wolf hit and killed by
a vehicle on Interstate 90 in
eastern King County in April
was healing from a gunshot
wound to a rear leg. She was
the fi rst gray wolf known to
venture west of the Cascades
in decades.
Deer and elk serve as a buffer to livestock attacks
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
They weren’t on the agenda
when the Oregon Department
of Fish and Wildlife Com-
mission voted Nov. 9 to take
wolves off the state’s endan-
gered species list, but Oregon’s
elk and deer population likely
will be key factors in wolf man-
agement decisions in the years
ahead.
Mark Henjum, a retired
wildlife biologist who was
ODFW’s original wolf pro-
gram coordinator, said healthy
deer and elk populations are a
buffer between livestock and
the state’s increasing number of
predators.
Oregon has 25,000 to
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
The wolf OR-7 walks in the
Rogue River-Siskiyou National
Forest in southwest Oregon.
30,000 black bears, an estimat-
ed 6,200 cougars and a mini-
mum of 82 wolves, according
to ODFW.
Biologists fully expect the
state’s wolf population to con-
tinue growing. Wolves occupy
only 12 percent of their poten-
tial range in the state, and con-
tinued dispersal from Northeast
Oregon will put them in contact
with elk and deer and possi-
bly in competition with other
predators. Bear and cougar are
much more widely dispersed in
the state.
Sharp, localized drops in un-
gulate prey, as deer and elk are
known, could drive predators
to attack sheep, cattle or other
domestic animals, Henjum and
other biologists say.
Bears are primarily om-
nivorous but will take young
deer and elk, especially in the
spring. Cougars, meanwhile,
are solitary ambush hunters and
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can take just about any animal
at will, Henjum said. “They’re
amazingly good at what they
do,” he said.
Wolves travel in packs and
chase down prey. They can
kill solitary adult cougars, or
females and kittens, and chase
cougars off carcasses. Pressure
from wolves can force cougars
into steeper, brushier terrain.
The competition for ungulate
prey could produce a bad turn
for livestock.
Biologists say wolves pre-
fer elk, but attacks on livestock
are what anger cattle and sheep
producers and gain media atten-
tion. From 2009 through June
2015, Oregon’s confi rmed loss-
es to wolves stood at 79 sheep,
37 cattle, two goats and two
herd protection dogs. Ranchers
believe wolves are responsible
for much more damage, say-
ing livestock often disappear in
wolf country. In addition, many
livestock attacks are written
off as “probable” or “possible”
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wolf depredations.
“This buffer thing is one
of the main reasons we hav-
en’t seen so high a rate of loss
of livestock,” Henjum said. “I
think down the road, trying to
maintain the ungulate popula-
tions is something that‘s going
to be more important as we
move on.”
Although wolves were tak-
en off the state endangered spe-
cies list, their existence in Ore-
gon is still governed by a wolf
management plan. Hunting
and trapping are not allowed,
and there’s no sport season for
wolves. The plan does allow
“controlled take” of wolves in
cases of chronic livestock at-
tacks or decreases in prey.
Phase 3 of the wolf plan,
the next step after delisting,
calls for wolves to be managed
“in concert with its wild prey
base,” a move strongly support-
ed by groups such as the Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation. “Or-
egon’s wolf population is rapid-
ly approaching the point where
human tolerance and unaccept-
able impacts upon the wolf’s
deer and elk prey base must be
addressed,” the foundation said
in a letter to the ODFW Com-
mission.
Jerome Rosa, executive
director of the Oregon Cat-
tlemen’s Association, said his
organization’s members report
seeing fewer deer and elk in
some areas, and more in others.
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Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
The male wolf, OR 22, is pic-
tured walking through a North-
east Oregon forest on Jan. 26.
A Baker City, Ore., man who
reported he shot the wolf now
faces criminal charges.
Oregon man
who shot wolf
faces criminal
charges
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
An Eastern Oregon man
who told state police and wild-
life offi cials that he’d shot a
wolf while hunting coyotes on
private property in Grant Coun-
ty has been charged with killing
an endangered species.
Brennon D. Witty, 25, also
was charged with hunting with
a centerfi re rifl e without a big
game tag, Harney County Dis-
trict Attorney Tim Colahan said
Nov. 16. Both charges are Class
A misdemeanors, each punish-
able by up to a year in jail and
a $6,250 fi ne. Witty will be ar-
raigned Dec. 2 in Grant County
Justice Court, Canyon City.
The shooting happened in
Grant County; the neighboring
Harney County DA handled
it as a courtesy because his
Grant County counterpart was
acquainted with the hunter’s
family and wanted to avoid the
appearance of a confl ict of in-
terest.
The incident happened Oct.
6, when Witty voluntarily
notifi ed ODFW and Oregon
State Police that he’d shot a
wolf while hunting coyotes
on private property south of
Prairie City. Police recovered
a wolf’s body on the property.
Oregon’s action to remove
wolves from the state endan-
gered species list has no ap-
parent bearing on the case.
Wolves were listed under the
state Endangered Species Act
at the time of the shooting; the
ODFW Commission on Nov.
9 removed wolves from the
state list. Regardless, they re-
mained on the federal endan-
gered species list in the west-
ern two-thirds of the state.
The wolf was identifi ed as
OR-22, a male that has worn a
GPS tracking collar since Oc-
tober 2013 and dispersed from
the Umatilla Pack in Febru-
ary 2015. He was in Malheur
County for awhile, then trav-
eled into Grant County. Wild-
life biologists don’t believe he
had a mate of pups. Young or
sub-dominant wolves often
leave their home packs to es-
tablish their own territory and
fi nd mates.
OR-22 was the third Or-
egon wolf known to have
died since August, when the
Sled Springs pair in North-
east Oregon were found
dead of unknown cause. The
state now has a minimum of
82 wolves.